I’m Karoline, an illustrator and printmaker currently based in Birmingham. I’ve specialised in screen print for over ten years and I use the technique to print a range of my own greetings cards, decorations, tote bags and limited edition prints.
My designs are characterised by bold outlines, patterns and bright colours so they are ideal for screen printing. First I draw my artwork by hand in black and white before creating the separate layers for each different colour to be printed. It doesn’t take too long to make the layers though as I mostly work in just one, two or three colours and very occasionally four colours! I’m lucky to have access to different print studios where I can make my own photo stencils for screen printing. Using the photo stencils, I then carefully screen print my work in small quantities or limited editions in my home studio. It’s a small space so most of my work also tends to be small scale ranging from A6 to A3 in size.
I’m inspired by all the possibilities that screen print offers and I love working with layers of flat bold colour to create my prints. I’m also interested in folk art, craft and costumes from around the world and Eastern Europe in particular. Soviet bloc graphic design and illustration have been an influence on my work since I travelled to Russia in the early 1990s. My cards and prints are inspired by ephemera and toys including vintage Bulgarian stamps, traditional Polish paper cuts and old Russian tin toys.
In 2020 I created the black cat artwork for Printed by Us in my usual style of a bold motif decorated with folk art inspired patterns. The cat was designed to be easily screen printed in two colours; first the green eyes and green leaves in the background would be printed, then the black cat could be added and the prints would be finished! There’s a little bit of overlap around the cat’s green eyes so hopefully registering the two different layers was nice and quick for someone learning to screen print.
I’m never that particular about colours and most of my designs work in different colour combinations. So there is also an orange and yellow version of my cat and even a third version which has grey outlines with mint green eyes and leaves. I really enjoyed creating the cat design for Printed by Us and it was nice to work on something for someone else to screen print for a change. Although sometimes I see the artwork for the three different coloured cats and think ‘Oh I’d really love to screen print them!’
